The Language-Learning Thread

Cheers guys, i'll read over that all in work tomorrow. I think it is best to start reading and writing, so I guess i'll start with that. Got a partner to practice with now too so should be easier with some support.

Oh, one of my main tips which may only be due to the way my brain works, is don't fuss over vocab. Honestly I got so stressed at the start when I couldn't remember the words for like Elbow and even head. I still don't know the word for elbow, but I realised that there's no point in me going out of my way to remember it as when am I ever going to need it?

Focus on grammar at the start and vocab will start flowing to you later. That's the way I had to do it as I just couldn't remember it all at once and I hated it, it's how my brain has always worked too. I can't remember too much at once or in one go unless I'm in a pressured situation. If you want to self learn rather than go to a class, I'd personally say go for it!

Yeah, you really should learn Hiragana first - you don't want to read any romaji if you can help it. Learn the two alphabets, then do the first few lessons for free on YesJapan, changing the options to "Hiragana-Katakana" rather than romaji.

Then once you've done that, I'd get either the Busy People book or continue and pay for the YJ lessons (it's about £7 a month, I think).

Don't do what I did and buy loads of books based on really good Amazon reviews or language website tips. I ended up buying loads and distracting myself from my core learning, which should be the Busy People and YJ lessons. Firstly, a few of the books are probably more for intermediate students and, while they may prove useful eventually and may be decent quality, A Handbook of Japanese Verbs or The Book of Japanese Sentence Patterns isn't really essential at this point. I only know about five verbs - to be, to go, to return, to come and to eat.

Just get as much simple vocab under your belt. I'm not the best home learning to be honest, as I've gotten lazier and lazier as I've been through secondary school, college and Uni, so I'm much better at classroom learning. If you're like SD, though, you can probably fly through at a much faster pace (my Chinese class, coincedently, goes through things quite a bit slower than I would like, but is nonetheless useful).

If you can enrol on a nightclass or something, I'd do so. My local Uni do one so I go to that (if you're doing a degree, it counts as a module).

If you've got a partner, better still. If you're a beginner, post some stuff up here and I'll have a go at reading it. Likewise, you can have a go at reading my stuff - it probably won't take you very long to get to my level if you work fast, as I've been neglecting my Japanese for Chinese recently.

StayDead wrote:Oh, one of my main tips which may only be due to the way my brain works, is don't fuss over vocab. Honestly I got so stressed at the start when I couldn't remember the words for like Elbow and even head. I still don't know the word for elbow, but I realised that there's no point in me going out of my way to remember it as when am I ever going to need it?

YesJapan lesson 1? :lol:

I can't remember half the body parts either. I'm lucky that the Kanji are pretty much identical to the Chinese hanzi (I checked that group) but I won't be able to pronounce most of them. I've always been able to remember "kuchi" for mouth, "hana" for nose, "ha" for teeth and "atama" for head, but that's about it.

Same with some of the furniture items. Though I've never forgotten that makura is a pillow.

So, from that lesson, I could probably, in the future, say something like "Take my head, kiss my mouth and let's lie down on this pillow".

What more could you ever need?

Also, don't learn Chinese at the same time. Fair enough, do that once you're fluent, but you're just going to get yourself into the same tangled mess as I am in - where you think in three languages (I often throw French in there as well when speaking Japanese).

I am just going through some Kanji now and why is this "teacher" in Japanese?

先生

I get about fifty different results when I search for teacher in that Kanji dictionary. I'm not sure if the verb and the noun are the same...

In Chinese 先生 means "Mr" (lit. "first born") and teacher is:

老师 "laoshi" - old master

Also, SD, I've just seen this symbol -做 - does it mean "to do, to make" in Japanese?

Parksey wrote:Also, don't learn Chinese at the same time. Fair enough, do that once you're fluent, but you're just going to get yourself into the same tangled mess as I am in - where you think in three languages (I often throw French in there as well when speaking Japanese).

I am just going through some Kanji now and why is this "teacher" in Japanese?

先生

I get about fifty different results when I search for teacher in that Kanji dictionary. I'm not sure if the verb and the noun are the same...

In Chinese 先生 means "Mr" (lit. "first born") and teacher is:

老师 "laoshi" - old master

Also, SD, I've just seen this symbol -做 - does it mean "to do, to make" in Japanese?

The 先 in 先生 means "previously" or "former". You also use it in cases like, "last week" or "last month": 先週 and 先月 respectively.
The 生 on its own, is read なま and means like, "raw" or "natural". Combined with other kanji, and it becomes to have "life" meaning and connotations. So 先生, to me at least, is someone who can teach as they have had experience and share that experience with 学生 (がくせい - student), who may not have that experience.

You can also use 先生 for doctors, or any kind of master or respected knowledgeable person, I guess, which may explain why it has so many results in your dictionary?

Your other kanji, I think is something to do with "taking into account" or "consideration" or something like that, but don't quote me on that one.

Bah, so the Chinese character for "first" is the Japanese one for "last". That's not going to help at all. It seems the word for student - 学生 (gakusei/xuesheng) is the same. When you see 学 in Japanese is it always relating to studying or school?

Also, can someone who is doing Chinese tell me what the difference is between saying:

学习中文 - xuexi Zhongwen

and something like:

我学中文 - wo xue Zhongwen

Specifically what the difference between xue 学 and 学习 xuexi. The latter seems to be "learning" rather than "learn" but there's no future tense in Chinese so I'm wondering whether it's a kind of particle or something, like 了 is used for completed actions.

来週 - Next week 今週 - This week 先週 - Last week 毎週 - Every week.

来、今、先 and 毎 can be used with a ton of other words as a prefix. It's one of the best things about Japanese really. There's a few symbols that if you understand you'll understand a lot more vocab, especially when it comes to the prefix's and suffixes. For example, you have 無 which as a prefix means like un- non-. For example 意識　- いきし conciousness becomes 無意識 - むいしき - unconciousness. 差別 - discrimination becomes 無差別 - indiscrimination.

Prefix's/suffix's rule. :wub:

Parksey wrote:Bah, so the Chinese character for "first" is the Japanese one for "last". That's not going to help at all. It seems the word for student - 学生 (gakusei/xuesheng) is the same. When you see 学 in Japanese is it always relating to studying or school?

Pretty much yeah. I can't recall ever seeing it in any other context, anyway, although I'm not sure how much volume that speaks.

StayDead wrote:来、今、先 and 毎

So those always mean, in order, next, this, last and every, when they modify the word in front of them?

Going to crack on with some Japanese tonight when I get in. Need to revise quite a lot of stuff - I can remember pretty much all of it when reading but speaking it all off the top of my head or writing it down from nothing is harder.

Same with Chinese, really. Reading is really easy.

Parksey wrote:Bah, so the Chinese character for "first" is the Japanese one for "last". That's not going to help at all. It seems the word for student - 学生 (gakusei/xuesheng) is the same. When you see 学 in Japanese is it always relating to studying or school?

Also, can someone who is doing Chinese tell me what the difference is between saying:

学习中文 - xuexi Zhongwen

and something like:

我学中文 - wo xue Zhongwen

Specifically what the difference between xue 学 and 学习 xuexi. The latter seems to be "learning" rather than "learn" but there's no future tense in Chinese so I'm wondering whether it's a kind of particle or something, like 了 is used for completed actions.

I tend to hear 学习 spoken a lot more than just 学 on its own but as far as I'm aware there isn't a difference between them. Generally if you're just saying that you're studying, without regards to a specific topic, then 学习 is the better option.

For example.

你明天干什么？ - Ni3 ming2tian1 gan4 shen2me?

我需要学习 - wo3 xu1yao4 xue2xi2

sounds more natural than

我需要学 - wo3 xu1yao4 xue2

In fact, I'm thinking that you can't actually say the latter, although I'm not 100% on that.

John Galt wrote:For example.

Ni3 ming2tian1 gan4 shen2me?

wo3 xu1yao4 xue2xi2

sounds more natural than

wo3 xu1yao4 xue2

Now you're just making gooseberry fool up.

Need a bit of help with the translation of this sentence:

我们今天就喝中国红酒吧
women jintian jiu he zhongguo hongjiu, ba

Obviously, it means "Today, we will have Chinese red wine, then" (it's in a set of dialogues at a restaurant, and previously you've asked if they have any Chinese white wine, to which the waiter says they don't, so that's why 吧 is in there.

It's more the 就 (jiu/exactly) that I'm wondering about. Literally it means "today, we will exactly drink chinese red wine, then", but I'm wondering what the 就 does to the sentence. It obviously has a more colloquial meaning to be in there, as if I was saying the sentence off the top of my head, I would just say:

我们喝中国红酒吧

I wouldn't even put jintian in there if responding to the waiter.

It means "in that case". In the same way that you've given 吧 the meaning "then", 就 just indicates reference to the previous statement and its effect on the current one.

Sorry to jump in, and kinda change the subject, but anyone else doing Languages at Uni?

I'mthecityexplorer wrote:Sorry to jump in, and kinda change the subject, but anyone else doing Languages at Uni?

Do you mean as a degree or as individual modules? I'm doing a couple of German modules and learning a little Japanese on the side but they aren't the focus of my degree.

andretmzt wrote:
I'mthecityexplorer wrote:Sorry to jump in, and kinda change the subject, but anyone else doing Languages at Uni?

Do you mean as a degree or as individual modules? I'm doing a couple of German modules and learning a little Japanese on the side but they aren't the focus of my degree.

Whichever, tbh. I was just interested. I'm doing straight Russian, but might see if I can get onto French as well or politics.

Well I'm taking Meteorology and Oceanography and after two years of physics and maths it has been really nice to be able to pick up German again. Sure it can be difficult but I enjoy learning it and have a laugh with the other students taking it. Same with Japanese, even though that's more of an informal thing. Maybe it's just me being tired of science or perhaps taking something outside your degree that you find interesting, but it was definately worth it.

They are also a good source of easy credits in my case :shifty:

I'mthecityexplorer wrote:
andretmzt wrote:
I'mthecityexplorer wrote:Sorry to jump in, and kinda change the subject, but anyone else doing Languages at Uni?

Do you mean as a degree or as individual modules? I'm doing a couple of German modules and learning a little Japanese on the side but they aren't the focus of my degree.

Whichever, tbh. I was just interested. I'm doing straight Russian, but might see if I can get onto French as well or politics.

I find that straight language courses, especially those which aren't from scratch, tend to be a decent amount of grammar/new vocab etc (depending on the level), and a lot of irrelevant but somehow associated modules. For example, politics or literature of the country whose language you're studying. And that may be done in English, which defeats the point, but whatever.

I'm doing joint honours Economics and Japanese, with Economics being the "major" and our classes in Japanese have so far just been grammar/language classes, but I think that changes when we come back after our year out.

The Language-Learning Thread

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